Greetings for 2019 from Seattle Food Allergy Consortium
We are currently revamping and updating the SeaFAC website and in the interim we wanted to send out a newsletter to bring everyone up-to-date!
SeaFAC Leadership changes:
Dr. Steve Tilles has left Seattle to join Aimmune Therapeutics in San Francisco as Senior Director of Medical Affairs. Dr. Tilles played a critical role in initiating SeaFAC and advancing our missions- we will miss him very much! However, we happily welcome Dr. Daniel Petroni who will replace him on the SeaFAC executive committee. Dr. Petroni also replaced Dr. Tilles as executive director of Seattle Allergy & Asthma Research Institute (recent name change from ASTHMA, Inc. Research Center). The other SeaFAC executive committee members continue to be Dr. Mary Farrington, from Benaroya Research Institute/ Virginia Mason Medical Center, and Dr. Bill Henderson, Head of Allergy Section, University of Washington School of Medicine.
Catherine Feight is the new Administrative Manager for SeaFAC. She can be reached at cfeight@asthmainc.org.
Community Outreach and Education:
We will have a SeaFAC Community Education Forum on March 9th, 2019 (9 AM to 12 noon) at the University of Washington South Lake Union campus, 850 Republican Street, Seattle, WA 98109. This event is free of charge, but we ask that you sign up here: https://www.seafac.org/seattle-food-allergy-consortium-spring-symposium.
Speakers include Dr. Erik Wambre from Benaroya Research Institute talking about recent advancements in learning about the cause of food allergy, Dr. Steve Tilles will return to talk about oral immunotherapy for peanut allergy, Dr. Dan Petroni will give a quick overview of current therapy trials here in Seattle and we will have a “Question and Answer” panel with patients (adults, children and parents) and allergists who have participated in clinical trials.
Clinical Trials for Food Allergy Treatments:
When we established SeaFAC in 2012 there were no opportunities for food allergic individuals to participate in therapeutic trials and thus one of the primary goals of SeaFAC was to bring clinical trials for food allergy therapies to Seattle. In the interim food allergy clinical research sites have been established at both Seattle Allergy & Asthma Research Institute and Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason. Both sites were selected to join the FARE Clinical Network (FCN) which is a nationwide network of leading research and clinical care facilities supported by FARE (Food Allergy Research and Education) with a common goal of ensuring that patients with food allergies have access to state-of-the-art diagnosis, care, research and clinical trials. (To learn more about the FARE clinical networks: https://www.foodallergy.org/research-programs/fare-clinical-network)
Since 2012, 153+ patients from the Seattle area have been enrolled in food allergy immunotherapy studies. These studies include Aimmune Therapeutics peanut oral immunotherapy trials, DBV Technologies peanut and milk cutaneous (skin) patch trials, a multiple food oral immunotherapy trial combined with a biologic called omalizumab (anti-IgE), a subcutaneous peanut injection immunotherapy trial, a peanut DNA vaccine trial, and a trial combining sublingual peanut immunotherapy with an adjuvant called a “TLR4 agonist”. Seattle Asthma & Allergy Research Institute is actively recruiting for 3 new peanut allergy studies (two in children and the other for adults and teens). Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason will be beginning recruitment for a peanut immunotherapy trial (targeting younger children) most likely by mid-2019. (To learn more about clinical trials at Seattle Asthma & Allergy Research Institute: https://seattleallergy.org/our-studies and Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason: https://www.benaroyaresearch.org/our-research/clinical-research/get-involved).
Translational Science Research in Food Allergy:
Although many folks participating in clinical therapy trials have had success, a significant number have not tolerated the treatments and have discontinued participation in the studies. This emphasizes the need for further research into the cause of food allergy in order to find improved and safer treatments. In 2008, Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason established an allergy research program and scientists there have made some new and important findings about the immune mechanisms involved in the development of food allergy. The goal is to implement these findings quickly and to help create safer and more effective therapies.
In 2017, Dr. Erik Wambre, a principle investigator at Benaroya Research Institute, made a groundbreaking discovery when he identified a specific type of immune cell that causes allergy- he has called it T-helper 2 A cell (Th2A) (“A” for allergy) He showed that patients with allergies (environmental as well as food allergy) have Th2A cells specific for the proteins they are allergic too while folks without allergy do not have these cells. He also showed that with immunotherapy, such as allergy injections for pollen and oral immunotherapy for peanut, these Th2A cells disappear in patients who have a successful response to treatment. These findings were published in Science Translational Medicine in August 2017.
https://www.benaroyaresearch.org/blog/post/breakthrough-allergy-cell-discovered
Earlier this year, Dr. Wambre along with Dr. Bill Kwok, also a principle investigator at Benaroya Research Institute, received a NIH grant to study these cells further in the context of peanut allergy. Not all patients respond effectively to oral immunotherapy to peanut and a significant subset have to stop treatment due to side effects such as eosinophilic esophagitis. Drs. Wambre and Kwok hope to discover differences in these patients specific allergic T-cells in order to better design treatments and to identify beforehand those patients who are likely to develop side effects to current oral immunotherapy. These patients can then be directed to a different treatment modality. Attached is a link to the BRI website with further information:
Dr. Karen Cerosaletti, an investigator in the Translation Research Program and director of the Genotyping Laboratory at Benaroya Research Institute, is currently doing research aimed at identifying specific genes that may confer food allergy. Dr. Cerosaletti has a grant from the Immune Tolerance Network (part of the NIH) to study, along with colleagues at John Hopkins University, the genomes from the children involved in the “Learning Early About Peanut (LEAP) study”. The LEAP Study showed that earlier introduction of peanut into the diet led to significant decrease in the development of peanut allergy. They are analyzing the genomes from patients that developed peanut allergy to identify potential candidate genes for food allergy development. Dr. Cerosaletti’s lab is performing experiments to understand how these genes can lead to peanut allergy.
Dr. Steven Ziegler, Director of the Immunology Research Program at Benaroya Research Institute, has previously identified immune molecules critical for the development of allergic disease, such as TSLP and IL-33. There is evidence that these molecules may play a role in the development of eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), which is a potential side effect of oral immunotherapy for food allergy. Patients with food allergy also have an increased risk of developing EoE, typically during their teens or early adulthood. Currently, the scientific team at Benaroya Research Institute is looking at the potential link between food allergy and EoE. To-date we have had over 15 patients donate blood cells and biopsies from endoscopy for the study.
Benaroya Research Institute is looking for both food-allergic and healthy, non-allergic volunteers to donate blood samples for these ongoing research efforts.
If you are interested in learning more about volunteering, please contact us at allergy@benaroyaresearch.org. To learn more about our research and biorepository, go to: https://www.benaroyaresearch.org/our-research/biorepositories/allergies-asthma
University of Washington Allergy Fellowship program:
Lastly, we continue to work closely with University of Washington Allergy and Immunology Department in the training fellowship for Allergy and Immunology. It is our goal to fully educated newly trained allergists about food allergy and encourage them to pursue careers in food allergy research.
Thank you for your support of SeaFAC!